When he was a student at Colorado College in the early 1990s, artist Giles Thompson built this large schooldesk sculpture. It stood in the CC library until 1999, when the college donated it to the Business of Art Center in Manitou Springs. At some point after that, it was painted red, perhaps to protect it from outdoor conditions.

Giant chair-desk by Giles Thompson, CC class of 1993, Tutt Library, ca. 1992. PP95-62 #68.

Library staff Jessie Brown and Rita Edgington in the giant chair, August 1993. PP95-62 #102.

“Necktie” event at Tutt Library, 1994. Schooldesk in background. PP 95-62 #110.

Sculpture in Manitou Springs, date uncertain. Photo from the Manitou Springs Arts Council.

This is quite lovely! Congratulations to director Chauncey Crail and the rest of his Colorado College team (Corrina Leatherwood, Caitlin Taber, James Dinneen, Dylan Pearl, Holly Pretsky, and Alec Sarche, plus many more).

Three libraries in the ImagineIF library system in Montana are now offering patrons the opportunity to try weaving on a loom. As Helen Carter Bergner put it on Facebook, “libraries are getting 3D printers … why not looms?” I agree! If we’re going to offer maker spaces and technologies, let’s offer all kinds!

I love that this happened. It’s not exactly a library shenanigan, but it’s library-related. Well done, David Mazières and Eddie Kohler! They submitted a sham paper (full of swears!) to a sham journal in 2005 to make a point (and make a lot of people laugh).

Recently, another scholar, Peter Vamplew, sent the same sham paper to a different sham journal and received an acceptance (contingent on receipt of $150). The journal even sent a sham “reviewer report,” re-posted in full at Scholarly Open Access. Apparently, the sham paper is “excellent”!

Thanks, Steve Lawson and io9 (from whom I stole the headline).

“Bobby Lucelee: A Very Silly Play for Kids” is available in PDF format here from author, playwright, and cartoonist Jonathan Caws-Elwitt. It calls for six actors and is, indeed, quite silly.

Sample dialog:

BARRY: Who’s Bobby Lucelee?

LIBRARIAN A-M: Well, duh, that’s what we’re all trying to find out!

LIBRARIAN N-Z: Psst . . . librarians aren’t supposed to say “duh”.
(Librarian A-M shushes Librarian N-Z.)

LIBRARIAN N-Z (To the audience): Who can think of some ways to find out who Bobby Lucelee is?
(Ad lib as audience members make suggestions.)

BARRY (To Librarians): Where are the books on stamp collecting? I need to get started on my homework.

CHRIS: Stamp collecting? I thought the assignment was on Italian cooking.

LIBRARIAN A-M: I thought it was on Bobby Lucelee.

TERRY, CHRIS, BARRY: Shh!

Thanks, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, and I hope anyone who performs the play will send a video to Library Shenanigans!

(p.s., I know the cartoon illustration has nothing to do with libraries or the play, but I loved it so much I couldn’t resist using it.)

Staff of the Nashville Public Library recorded a library-centered version of the Meghan Trainor earworm. Thanks, Steve Lawson!

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this librarian performed truly courageous library shenanigans during WWII:

ONA SIMAITE (1899-1970), Lithuania

Ona Simaite, a librarian at Vilna University, used her position to aid and rescue Jews in the Vilna ghetto. Entering the ghetto under the pretext of recovering library books from Jewish university students, she smuggled in food and other provisions and smuggled out literary and historical documents. In 1944, the Nazis arrested and tortured Simaite. She was then deported to Dachau and later transferred to a concentration camp in southern France. She remained in France following her liberation.

Photo credit: Yad Vashem photo archives.

Thanks, Dina Wood and the USHMM Facebook page!